London’s blockbuster museums draw millions of visitors every year. But while the V&A, the Natural History Museum and Tate Modern easily spring to mind, far fewer people will be familiar with the Museum of Breadboards, the Museum of Sex Objects, or Harrow’s rare gnome collection.
However, that could be about to change as dusty archives and private collections are opened up to the public for a festival next month.
Among the obscure attractions taking part in the Heritage Open Days Festival is the Museum of Sex Objects, found inside the Covent Garden flat of Deborah Sim who co-founded the upmarket adult store Coco de Mer.
The objects include a Staffordshire pottery “loving cup” commemorating the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexuality, and a whip made from human hair.
Also featuring is the world’s only breadboard museum, in a collector’s private house in Putney, and Headstone Manor and Museum in Harrow, which is holding an exhibition on the history of garden gnomes.
Other events include a chance to explore the archives of Heathrow Airport, held in the University of West London in Ealing, and the Prince Philip Maritime Collections, Kidbrooke, where the Royal Museums of Greenwich store items that are not on show.
Visitors can also go to the Pilsudski Institute in Hammersmith to learn how Polish code breakers laid the groundwork for Alan Turing’s decoding of Nazi messages in the Second World War.
Festival manager Annabelle Thorpe said it aimed to highlight often missed aspects of British heritage and bring in audiences who might not go to major museums. She added: “We open up places from factories to shepherds’ huts — this quirky and eccentric history — and we want to encourage people to discover it.”
